Here is the drawing for the next cover painting I'm working on.  I decided to go ahead and do a horizontal format make it a wrap-around book cover.  The trick will be making the boy look like the same boy from the other picture.  I'm glad to get a chance to put another tree in this picture since I love drawing trees :)  The tree is from my head, but the boy I drew after shooting some reference photos of the same boy, as well as a few of myself to try and get the body position how I wanted it:)

Hey there,
I finished another of my cover illustrations and wanted to post it for you. I need to get it on my website but I'm having some difficulties with that...hopefully to be resolved soon. In the meantime, here it is. I'm pretty happy with it, I think. I can see a couple of little things I might go back and touch up, but for now I'm OK with it. I'm getting going with the next one now. It's still in the drawing stage though. It's going to be a continuation of the same series and will be focused on the red-haired boy on the right. I'm thinking of doing it as a horizontal painting--that could be a wrap-around for a book cover.
By the way, in case anyone is wondering, this cover painting is not for any particular story. I am just creating works that could be for a story.
Hope you like it.

Hey everybody,
I attended the famous Comic Con of San Diego for the first time this year...well, I went a couple of years ago, but I'm not counting that because I was only there for about an hour just before it was ending. Anyway, I've been hearing about it forever and I've gone back and forth on whether or not I think it would be worth my while to go. I decided to go ahead and spend a day scoping things out there. Basically, I was looking around to see if there is a market for my artwork there. I also got my portfolio reviewed by a couple of people. After attending, my conclusion is...well, I'm still not really sure. I definitely think that my stuff doesn't fit with a large percentage of the work there (high fantasy and sci-fi), but there was some cool stuff there that is close to what I do. So I think I should keep researching that market and keep myself open to it.
As for how the experience was apart from my "recon" work, it was a fun place to check out. The highlight was getting to watch a demo by one of my favorite illustrators, Gregory Manchess. He was at the Donato Arts booth. It was so cool to watch him paint for about an hour. I was pretty close. He did a painting of Hellboy that looked very cool. It was in oil and he was just very steady and confident in his method. Cool.
I also got to see one of my favorite art instructors, Marshall Vandruff, there. He did a drawing seminar for kids on how to draw monsters, as well as hung out at the booth he shared with the art group he's with. It's called Carbon Canyon Studios and it's he and awesome fantasy artists, Justin Sweet, Vance Kovacs, and John Dickinson. It was cool to catch up with him a little.
Overall, it was really intimidating to see the high level of talent at the conference, even if most of it is not necessarily the kind of stuff that I do. I really feel motivated to keep pushing myself in my artwork and to keep painting and drawing more, more, more!

Here's the latest...I'm continuing to work on the Shunning Tree sequel illustration. It's moving along, but it's not quite there yet. In the meantime, I made a decision not to attend the summer children's illustration conference (SCBWI) in LA after all. In looking over my portfolio, I'm moving in a new direction stylistically in my new stuff. I'm at a point where I don't really like a lot of the stuff in my portfolio--well, I don't think it really fits where I'm at anymore. With my newer pieces, I'm aiming much more specifically at book cover art for middle grade and young adult fantasy. So...I need to spend more time developing this newer work so that I can phase out the older stuff. With this in mind my goal is to produce about 10 new illustrations in the coming year. I think this will really help in going after the specific market I have in mind. Better roll up my sleeves and get to it!

In other news, the summer arts class I'm teaching begins next week. I'll be teaching a 2-Dimensional art class for children ranging from 3rd all the way to 8th grade. There is both a morning and an afternoon class and it lasts for 6 weeks. I'm a little nervous about the wide range in ages. But I'm also hoping to really relax and have some fun since I don't have to worry about grading the work. We're just there to learn and have fun. I'll be experimenting with some new techniques and projects that I hope will turn out really cool.

That's all for now. Hope you're all having a creative summer!

Cara

Hi all,
Ahh, school is almost out! I teach 2 classes at Orange County High School of the Arts as well as a class at Golden West College and the stars have aligned so that they both finish next week. Woo Hoo! During the summer I'm teaching an art class to younger kids through the high school's community arts program but that doesn't start for a few weeks. Until then I'm free as a bird to devote myself fully to my art for a little while. Uh oh. That means no excuses:) But really, I'm looking forward to finishing up a new piece I'm working on. It's the sequel to "The Shunning Tree" illustration--the one with the girl with the staff and the tree over her. The drawing for this new one has been completed and sitting on my desk for months I'm sad to say. It's time to get this monkey off my back and get it done. I've started it already and it's going well I think. I hope to pop another one out after that one so I can have a trilogy of pictures from that series.
Toward the end of the summer I'm planning to go to the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators Summer Conference in LA. I'm looking forward to redesigning my portfolio and having this new work to feature in it.
Wish me luck!
Cara

Here's some news, people! Back in December I did about 20 illustrations for this educational game called Elementeo. It's kind of along the lines of Magic: The Gathering, but teaches kids about chemistry. Well, the CEO for the game, who happens to be a 14 yr. old kid, let me know today that there was a feature about the game on the home page of Wired.com They included a picture of one of the cards that I illustrated depicting a witch overlooking some computer equipment. Unfortunately they didn't include my name:( But still, it was really cool to see my illustration on the main page of a site as big as Wired.com You can check out the article at:
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/04/14-year-old-cre.html
As far as I know, the kid behind the project, Anshul Samar, is still looking for a company to take on production and distribution of the game. Hopefully somebody will and I'll be able to purchase a copy of the game at some point. You can look at the game's website at: http://www.elementeo.com
I believe the game consists of about 120 cards and he used several other artists for the other cards.
The project was a tight deadline so I did the illustrations using scanned drawings and painting in Photoshop. I hope to get a gallery of the pictures up on my site soon.
Cara

Hey folks,
Just wanted to give an update on what I've been working on. I have a couple of things in the works. I'm working on an illustration of Hansel and Gretel. I originally was working on it for a competition, but the deadline has now passed...but I still want to finish it. I have a couple of other fairy tale illustrations that I've done and I thought it could fit nicely with the rest of those. It's about 75% done, I'd say.
The other thing I'm working on is some updates for my website. I want to add a lot more content to my gallery. Actually I want to set up several other galleries for different groupings of my art such as my Celtic design work, preliminary sketch work, and just other art that doesn't quite fit in the main category. I hope to work on that during spring break from my teaching which is coming up. Be on the watch for it!
Cara:)

Hello again,
I'm actually posting my valentine artwork again because I made some slight changes to it. After I posted it, I got some feedback on it that led me to make some edits: I added the broken heart graphic element, as well as making the arrows at the bottom a little darker and easier to read. I think it's an improvement so hopefully so do you:)
Cara

Hello all,
Well, I finally put up on my website the final version of the rough comp from my last post. It has been done for at least a month but I've just been too busy to get it up on my website. I feel really happy with it. I wasn't sure what to call it so I had just been calling it "Nadine", which is the name of the model I used, but I've now decided to name it "The Shunning Tree". This is because my good friend Deanna wrote a story inspired by the picture and that is the name of the story. I've decided to turn the character from the picture into a series so I am now at work on another painting featuring the same model and character. I look forward to posting some preliminary work for that soon.
In other news, this past week I had the fun opportunity to attend a 3 night seminar at Fullerton College by my favorite drawing teacher, Marshall Vandruff (see www.marshallart.com). I took pretty much every class I could from him when I was studying at Cal State Fullerton. This seminar was his Composition Crash-Course. I had taken it a few years ago, but he's always tweaking it and adding to it. It was so helpful and informative, so I feel ready to charge into this new year with new enthusiasm for my art. I took pages of notes but especially picked up on what he said about designing your pictures with abstract shapes and metaphors in mind. I was also really inspired by all the slides Marshall put up of one of my favorite artists (and one of Marshall's former students and a Fullerton College alum) Justin Sweet. Looking at his art really gets me excited about making new pictures.
Until next time...
Cara

Here is the rough color comp I did in Photoshop of the new bookcover I'm working on. It's not for any particular story. I just thought it would be a good addition to my portfolio as an example of a fantasy bookcover. So, here it is...
I'm working on the actual painting of it right now, which is being done in acrylic.
I was fortunate in finding a really good model for the girl and getting some excellent reference of her.

Hey all,
I know it's been a long time coming but I'm in the midst of a new illustration now. My motivation is having new work to enter upcoming competitions with. I'm sad that I already missed one of the deadlines I wanted to make, for the Illustration West competition a couple of weeks ago, but now I'm focused on getting work done for the NY Society of Illustrators competition. The deadline is Oct. 1 so it's still going to be very tight. It's been a while since I did one of my regular traditional-style illustrations so it's making me a bit nervous. But that's how it always goes. I mean, as an artist, with each new project it can be easy to freeze up and say, "I forgot how to draw!":) But you just have to push through it.
For this illustration I've decided to go with a different focus somewhat as I'm composing it to be used for a bookcover. This is a result of my experience at the summer SCBWI conference. I came away from that feeling like I should focus my efforts more specifically on the middle-grade/teen markets in the fantasy genre. These markets feature color covers with some black/white interior illustrations. I did a little reconaissance work after the conference and went to Barnes & Noble with my camera and took photos of all the covers from those markets that I liked (well, until a B&N worker stopped me and said I couldn't do that--luckily, I had already taken enough shots:). I then drew thumbnail versions of all the bookcover photos so I could get a feel for the way shapes are used and composed on those bookcovers.
I then drew up a design that I felt could be seen on a bookcover. I'm pretty happy with my drawing, so now I need to push through to actually painting it.
I've also been doing some sketches for another bookcover. For this one I actually read a teen fantasy novel and want to do a cover and some interior illustrations as an example of what I would do for that novel. That artwork is only at an early stage yet though.
OK, that's all for now.

OK, I'm finally posting the picture I created for a contest on narniaweb.com. It's of the castle of Cair Paravel from the book, Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis.
The contest was for a promotional image to be used for the new Narnia movie. Unfortunately I was not chosen as the winner :( You can see the picture that won here: http://www.narniaweb.com/news.asp?id=1256&dl=13420360
And some of the other entries here: http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/fanclub/fanart_winners.html
I try to enter competitions whenever possible. Win some, lose some. This one was a little unique in that I did a drawing and then colored it using Photoshop. I usually go traditional but thought I'd experiment on this one.
Cara

Hey everybody,
Here's my post after having returned from the big SCBWI children's illustrators conference in LA. The conference lasted Friday-Monday, Aug 3-6. I was really excited to go after having had the chance to go for the first time 4 years ago. I hadn't been able to afford it/did'nt feel adequately prepared since then. But this year I set aside my tax return, bit the bullet, swallowed my pride, etc. and registered for it. This time I had the advantage of knowing some of the people that were going to be there. About 5 people from my illustrators group, "OC Illustrators," attended the conference.
The conference is held every year at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in LA. When you arrive and check in you are given a packet with all of your information and schedules for the weekend. Basically, each day there are several main sessions that everyone attends, and then there are a couple of breakout sessions that you get to choose. Each of those sessions had 12 different topics/speakers to choose from. This sounds like to many choices, but actually it was usually choosing between 2 or 3 of them because many were geared toward writers instead of illustrators, or were on topics that didn't apply to me--like licensing or contract negotiations.
The speakers they get are successful professionals in the field and share all kinds of good information. Sometimes they get some pretty big names in. This year the 2 most recognizeable names to me were Tamora Pierce (best-selling fantasy novelist) and Kadir Nelson (Caldecott Honor winning illustrator). It's pretty exciting to be there and to possibly see some of these famous people just hanging out by the pool or in one of the classes with you. If you can get your courage up you can go talk to them and they have only been friendly and nice from what I've experienced and observed.
I'm one of those copious note-takers so I came away from the conference with about 11 pgs of notes in my 7 x 10" sketchbook from all the presenters. My favorites were: Peter Brown (illustrator), Marla Frazee (author/illustrator), Tamora Pierce (writer), Kadir Nelson (illustrator), John Green (writer), Jesse Watson (illustrator), and Elizabeth Parisi (art director).
I also participated in the portfolio display on Saturday evening. Porfolios are displayed in one area along with any promotional materials you have. Art directors and editors are given a private look at your work and then it is opened up to everyone. I had my business cards, promo sheets, and promo bookmarks available with my portfolio. Of course, one hopes that some editor will be dazzled at your portfolio here and offer you a book deal right there. I feel my work measured up well there but I don't know if any editors or art directors will be biting.
I definitely enjoyed getting to enjoy the time with some of my fellow "OC Illustrators" there.
Now my challenge will be to use what I've learned and to keep my momentum from all the great energy there at the conference. I've got some ideas I want to get going on soon...

Hey all,
Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. I've been working on preparing my portfolio for the SCBWI Conference (children's illustration) in LA in August...as well as working a summer temp job in an office...and this week, I'm entertaining my family (sister, bro-in-law, niece, nephew, and mom) who are here visiting from NY. Whew! I have done a little artwork too. I recently drew/painted a quick piece of artwork for an on-line contest promoting the new Chronicles of Narnia movies. I'll post that soon.
Well, that's all for now.
Laters,
Cara

Hey all,
My audio podcast interview is now up! You can hear my lovely and insightful voice at http://www.ocillustrators.com and then click on "Podcast" And then...well, click on me!
the future is officially now,
Cara

Someone contacted me having some trouble getting to the interview by the copy & paste way, so here's another way to get to it. Just go to http://www.ocillustrators.com and then click on "Featured Artist" There you go.
Cara:)

Hey, my first ever interview is now online! I was chosen as this month's featured illustrator at http://www.ocillustrators.com and was interviewed for the website. You can read all about me here: http://web.mac.com/jheverett/iWeb/OC_Illustrators/Featured%20Artist.html
Sorry the address is so long. Just copy & paste, baby.
That website, by the way, is the online site for the illustrators critique group that I'm a part of. We're all children's illustrators who meet once a month to show what we're working on and to share information and encourage each other. A really great group of people that I feel privileged to hang out with.
Oh, there will also be an audio podcast of my interview--which is a bit different from my written interview which I prepared beforehand. I'll let you know when that's up. In the meantime, you can also peruse the excellent previous interviews with other members of the group.
Cara:)

Hey all,
Well, my exciting and new website is officially up and running now. I've just been fixing some last minute gliches with it--no doubt I'll find more later. I'm looking forward to having more time to actually create artwork since this website has been my main art project for the last couple of months. Hope you like it. I do plan on updating things whenever I can. One thing I want to add soon is another gallery, this one of sketches.
In other news, I did my first interview this morning--celebrity, here I come! It's actually for an illustrator's group that I'm a part of, The OC Illustrators (not that we are "OC" at all, believe me). Anyway, there will be a text version of the interview, as well as a podcast (impressive!). I'll put up a link as soon as I have it.
Later,
Cara

Hello all,
I've just created this blog for my website so I can share some of my goings-on, updates, witty observations, mood-swings, etc. etc. I hope to add new blogs on a pretty regular basis. For now though I've got to run (I know I'm such a tease) More later I promise!
Cara